Life Of Library
Every Life is a book, making up a library otherwise known as the future. Certain shelves contain certain people destined to make a difference in the small time they experience in another’s life. This is a story about two books that somehow fell off the shelf.
“Get the hell out of this house” My mother shrilled. “Who the hell would love such a rotted piece of shit like you? Your own father left you!!”
My mother was a drunk her harsh bitter soul had poisoned this world enough to wipe out a species.
“He didn’t leave me, he left you, and now I’m leaving too.” My voice faded with the last statement.
She ran out of the room and I knew exactly where the bitch was headed. “Stay the hell away from Jamie,” My stern voice practically growled. Jamie was my 8-year-old brother. He was never intact with the world. It was as if he was watching a movie of his life instead of actually acting it out. He rarely talked to anyone other than me. He never spoke to the bitch. Not even when she hit him. He stood lifeless, like a rag doll.
I ran into the down the faded peach colored hall. It was an odd color for the emotions in this house. I chased her gaining speed as she lunged into his room. She tried to slam the door on my face but I shoved my fingers into the crack sacrificing every nerve that shot pain up my veins. I pushed fiercely against the door now stained with blood from my fingernails. I was surprised at the ease of prying open the door. It was most likely my anger, shooting through my muscles as an outlet. My mom crashed into the wall; the drunken whore lay still. I knew I at least knocked her out; I wouldn’t have been lucky enough to put her in a coma.
My brother sat in the corner of what contained hardly enough clothes to call a closet. I tried to compose my face to let him know I was all right. I looked into his shattered soul, so broken that out of all that happened not a single tear pulled itself out of his eye. I wasn’t sure how long we sat there. Me staring at him, him staring through me watching his tragic movie that he called life.
Slowly I spoke in an uneven voice “I think its time for us to leave,” I paused making sense of how to say it calmly. “I’m 17 now and we don’t have to live here with…her,” I hated referring to her in human context. “I wont leave you, I-“
“I have 260 dollars, I’ll meet you with my things in 15 minutes,” he spoke in a voice so sure it had me convinced of my own plan.
I loved my brother more than myself and I would never leave him in a house so unprotected and defenseless. I was about to say something when I felt the water works start to build and I figured that it could wait until I was steady. I was now on an impossible mission to find someone who could bend over and put my brother and I back on our shelf. I knew it would be hard but I would do it. I would put my life, my education, my sanity, and my friends… or what was left of them on hold until I knew my brother was properly welcomed into this world.
I didn’t even need 15 minutes to pack all my things. I only had 9 minutes of stuff to pack. I put in the same 9 shirts I had owned since freshman year, 4 pairs of jeans, 1 pair of shoes, 5 pairs of underwear, 1 bra, and barely enough toiletries to last me a week. I remembered to put in the 80 dollars I had earned over the past few years from birthday money.
I met my brother in the living room. His back erect, his shoulders square. There was an unfamiliar crease in his forehead, making him look years older.
“Quickly, lets go before she wakes up,” he had the same lifeless tone he used when forced to talk to her. He cringed at the idea of her waking up.
“We can go to Ashwood, Oregon” I had planned my escape for years even before Jamie was born. I would hitch hike as far south as I could until I came upon Ashwood. It was a beautifully peaceful town with a population less than 1000. I knew expenses would be cheap and my brother loved nature, one of Ashwood’s greatest features. I am surprised I was able to wait 17 years of life with her. I didn’t stay for myself. I stayed for Jamie. He was more my son than hers. I was his protector.
~~~~~~
In some cases books are put on shelves with the same genre, in other cases they are placed in the miscellaneous section. With other books that have lost there place.
I had planned a trip to Ashwood, where I would find a job and work hours all night if I had to in order to pay for living expenses. I would help tutor my brother until he was old enough to embrace the world on his own. I planned my mother could never find me with police staff so limited in this small town. The escape of course was easy; catch a ride with some pie-seller who was on their long way home from the main towns.
The lady who picked us up was named Sugar, she had pitch-black eyebrows, matching the roots of her hair peeking through the faded blonde dye. She had a stunningly beautiful half smile despite her occasional chipped or broken tooth. Her skin was covered with freckles. She was more brown than white in a sense. She wore a long sleeve collared shirt, colored bright salmon. Her dark brown corduroy pants were much too large for her short legs. Her body was disproportionate with a huge stomach peeking out from the bottom of her shirt, with the tiniest legs, somehow able to hold up such a load. She looked like someone who would go into shock if she ever got to witness a building taller than 2 stories.
I look back on that moment thinking how silly I was, prejudging one of the best books you could ever read by its oh-so-boring cover.
We took off on a long rode that at points got tangled by the Forrest, which leaking into the narrow street. Her golden cross necklace hung from her mirror, looking too nice for a faded blue truck that was so old it could barely top 45 mph.
“Why ya’ll headed down to Ashwood?” Her tone was excited, it was as if she wanted to flaunt us around to her hillbilly friends and show them her new shiny friends.
I didn’t mind the awkward silence that lingered before the questions came. I decided not to lie, but not to tell the whole truth, just enough so she could understand that I needed to get away. I was almost sure I could explain enough of why I wanted to get away without having her contact the police or return us. “The mainland was a little much, we just need a fresh start,”
“Now what would a pretty girl like you be running away from?” Her tone was still light.
“I come from a rough home,” my voice cracked on the word home and I felt her gaze of curiosity on me. I wanted so bad to scream, to tell her how crappy my life was, to tell her how unfair I lived. I needed someone who I could trust with all of my secret pain.
“Oh Lordy, you have no idea”
I was sitting in the front seat on her right. I hadn’t noticed the left side of her face. When she turned to show me her scars I practically gasped.
“What, happened?” I spoke quietly.
“Bud Light, that what happened,” Her voice was filled more with anger than with pain. “Drunk father, box of beer, some gasoline, and a match.”
I cringed, waking Jamie who I hadn’t noticed sleeping on me. He was only awake for a moment before he passed out again.
“My story goes a whole lot like your” I decided to tell her my story, I figured if anyone could relate it was her and We had a four hour car ride to talk.
“I really really hope it doesn’t because if it was anything like mine…” She hesitiated before continuing. “Then your brother wouldn’t be here” Her eyebrows came together, she intensely focused on the road.
“No, oh no I am so sorry”
“Forget it, its your turn anyways, what exactly are you running away from?”
“I hate referring to the bitch as my mother, when she is drunk I can’t even consider her human. I had to leave her. My whole life I planned on running but I stayed… for him,” I stared down at Jamie “He is the only thing that I have ever loved, if she ever irreversibly hurt him…” I trailed off into thought
“You’re doing the right thing kid-” It was at this moment something larger than life took place. Something so Incredible I still to this day consider it as a dream.
A bullet shot through the glass of her truck missing the side of my neck by inches. Sugar swerved almost driving off deserted road. I reflexively turned as my brain tried to comprehend what just happened.
Sitting in the front seat of her 69’ Honda was the bitch. I froze. Her red hair like fire flamed out the window. Her shaking hands beneath her head holding the weapon that almost took my life.
“Dooo-Deeww” A loud noised came from the gun as she shot again this time not so close.
“Get down!” Sugar screamed at me.
The third bullet interrupted Sugar as it slammed into her shoulder. She swerved into the Forrest. We hit two trees doing more damage to the woods than it did to us. No one was hurt except for Sugar. Her arm bled like a damn holding back the entire ocean. Her arm was covered in blood but she ignored the pain. She stared at me, somehow understanding everything I was saying. How did she get here? Oh no was she really knocked out or just faking it. Could she hear me when I told Jamie our plan? Is she crazy? We are alone. No one is here to help us. I knew that there was only one way to get Jamie out of here alive. We had to kill my mother. I would do it, I would take death just to send her rotton soul to hell.
“That’s her,” Sugar spoke calmly. Her eyes flickered around the truck. I could see her somehow conspiring an escape plan. Her eyes stopped and focus on me for a minute. Her brilliant half smile, with a strange warped craze, flashed across her face. “Please as a favor to me, you have to take care of Jamie, let me do the honors.”
What? Honors? I look back on this moment in my life as I think about not only how lucky I was to be able to have her save me, but how lucky she was that I was able to in a sense save her. At the time I was confused by her willingness to save my brother, and me we were complete strangers. It was later that it occurred to me her burning desire of payback. So many years ago her father killed her brother, someone she was unable to save. She lived day in and day out with the pain in her heart, which pumped grieve throughout her veins.
She opened her glove box where lye a rifle. The blood coming from her shoulder should have killed her by now; I was surprised she hadn’t bled to death.
She opened the broken door and cocked the rifle. She grabbed the golden necklace of a cross and swung it over her heart. The last look I got of her was the one with that brilliant warped half smile. In a way I felt that this was destined to happen. The pain that lingered on her from her brother’s death had been waiting for revenge. She had waited 27 years to save someone after her last try-and-fail.
~~~~~~
I do believe to this day, that there is a God. He absolutely wanted Sugar to live because her golden cross necklace somehow shielded a bullet that headed straight to her heart. The necklace Infact had so much power inflicted on it that it was shoved into her skin, where it still remains as a plug holding in her blood, as if it were created to be a piece of her skin. Doctors have come from around the world amazed at the chances something like this could happen. So many doctors have wanted to take it out, or at least try to stitch it in better, but Sugar refuses. She says if God wanted it in her skin any harder he would have gave the bitch a better gun.
After so many years of being a book that had fallen on off the shelf, I wasn’t sure what to do with my life once I was back on. Sugar and me decided to dedicate our lives to picking up books and placing them where they should be. Jamie joined the group years later after marrying a high school sweetheart. Though, looking back I am pretty sure where my book fell from… obviously it was the epic section.
